I just found out that the Pocket Hercules (Naim Süleymanoğlu) passed away 3 months ago at age 50.

I know we have some weightlifters here and have had some previous threads on weightlifting, so thought I'd post this.

Some of his many accomplishments in weightlifting:

*3 Olympic Gold medals
*7 World Championship Gold medals along with one silver
*Süleymanoğlu is the first and only weightlifter to have snatched 2.5 times his body weight
*Second of only seven lifters to date to clean and jerk three times his body weight.
*He is the only weightlifter to date to clean and jerk 10 kilos more than triple his bodyweight.

He may have even won more medals except that his native Bulgaria joined the USSR in boycotting the 1984 Olympics. He later defected to Turkey.

He suffered from cirrhosis of the liver for a long time. In 2009 he was in hospital for nearly three months.

On 25 September 2017 he was admitted to a hospital due to the liver failure[15] On 6 October a liver transplantation was made when a liver donor was found. On 11 November he had surgery due to a hemorrhage in the brain and a subsequent edema. He died on 18 November 2017.

Somewhat impressive, makes me think of what a great meditator he would've been with such work ethic.

Yes, I agree. There is a tremendous amount of the mental-game with weightlifting. It requires lots of discipline, zeal, and of course energy.

Sometimes when I'm doing some reps, it feels like I know in advance how many I'm going to do. If I'm kind of tired, it might be only 3 or 4. If I'm full of energy, I know in advance I'll make it to 10.